Irena Brynner was born on December 1, 1917, in
Vladivostok in
Primorsky Krai,
Russia. An only child, she lived there until she was 11 years old, in a two-family household under one roof in a
Manchuria-based Russian
naval base. In addition to her parents, the home was shared with her aunt and uncle, each a sibling of her respective parents, who were married to each other, and her double cousins, future actor
Yul Brynner and his sister, Vera. She had lived in Dairen (now
Dalian) and
Peking (now Beijing),
China. Her father had worked as a Swiss
consul in China, and after he died in 1942, the Japanese government denounced him as a spy working for other governments. As a result, she and her mother fled and eventually landed in
San Francisco, California, in 1946. == Career ==